13 Ways of Looking at Water

Ⅰ

Girl, maybe eight is old enough to use a knife

to cut carrots after school, Wednesday night.

Pours grease into the pan’s porous brow, slips

cuts finger and reaches for the tap.

Ⅱ

Curtains of mist

echo across deserts like a monsoon or a moment

caught by the window droplets on the recluse’s web.

Ⅲ

Catch man home from work in a yellow taxi cab,

rivers run on the windshield, blurs all the street lights together.

Makes the city smell alive.

Ⅳ

Beads form pearl necklaces on pretty glimpses

of exposed décolletage, wears steam shawl over shoulder blades.

Alphabet runs down the drain.

Ⅴ

Downey blue coats the metacarpal to baby’s scar

oiled alkaline, water reaches to kiss.

Ⅵ

Kettle screams interrupts the metaphor,

feel like home.

Ⅶ

Steam brushes woman’s nose,

runs slow like cough syrup.

Porcelain bites skin, leaves burn shaped like a dove

behind on the left forearm.

Ⅷ

If it was a matter of need,

all I wanted was snow tonight.

Ⅸ

Farmer wakes early,

looks to the cornfields of September.

Rains like April.

Ⅹ

Five year old boy hisses, orange cup clatters on the ground

Puddles on the floor.

ⅩⅠ

Six tablespoons in the lungs.

ⅩⅡ

Cracked lips, Dr. said swabs with glycerin.

(funny humans) final symptom: euphoria, as the last droplets leaves the system.

Body speaks softly,

I’m dying.

ⅩⅢ

tap squeaks, she reaches out,

watches water wash away the red.